


Short S.T.A.L.K.E.R. stories - OC edition

by hope_to_last



Series: Comment fics and requests [2]
Category: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Family Issues, Friendship, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slice of Life, life in the Zone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 06:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17017575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hope_to_last/pseuds/hope_to_last
Summary: Collection of short fics written about my S.T.A.L.K.E.R. OCs





	1. Unimportant people

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short story about Lefty and Mouse, the Freedomers who Shovel in her first adventure, you can read that one on "From the Zone with Love", chapter 10 - A Mostly Normal Life (So Far)

Everyone had told her it was a waste of her time, yet Lefty was sure they’d change their tune when the vegetables started to grow. Who wouldn’t want some potatoes? Either to eat or to distil some moonshine. It didn’t matter much that Lefty had no idea of farming. If she had kept her mother’s ferns alive back home, growing potatoes couldn’t be that hard.

She was oh so wrong. Preparing the little parcel she had cordoned to be her vegetable garden was exhausting, even with Mouse’s help. Then she threw in the furrows pieces of a pair of inedible potatoes she found somewhere and kept stashed for this very purpose.

Nothing grew in her garden. The potatoes she tried to sow were too deteriorated to be anything but worm food. So she went to Ashot to acquire more potatoes. Her request raised some eyebrows and a few jokes, but Lefty was determined to show them all she could do anything she set her mind to do. And in this case it was to grow potatoes, damn it!

Her second try was more successful, even when she discovered the fruit of her labour was radioactive. Turns out the water she used to water them came from a flow of water coming from the acid lake itself, and was therefore highly radioactive. Mouse proposed to turn them into vodka since everyone knew vodka neutralized the radiation.  However, distilling them didn’t solve the problem, and she and Mouse nearly killed themselves with the radioactive moonshine.

Their brew was a smashing hit amongst their fellow freedomers, though. Perhaps this vodka didn’t eliminate radiation, but just a swig of it was as intoxicating like drinking half a bottle of the normal vodka. Ideal for when you wanted to get really wasted. Chekhov wasn’t amused by how the use of anti-rads suddenly skyrocketed, but Lingov gave his A-ok to the production of the radioactive vodka, so everyone happily adhered to his words.

#

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise when Ganja approached her, asking for a favour. It was just a small thing, he assured her, nothing she couldn’t handle. And after a lot of praise for her skills and her inventive, Lefty found herself with a handful of mystery seeds she had promised to grow alongside her new batch of radioactive potatoes.

It was weed, of course it was. What else could one expect from Ganja? There had been dudes at her institute who were less obsessed about weed than him.

She had no idea how to properly grow a plant, and while it didn’t matter much with the potatoes, her newest additions were a sorry sight. The marihuana plants were slender but lacking in the leaf department. The few leaves they had were droopy and yellowed. And to top it off the snails were eating them. Would the radiation from the water kill the snails? Or would she unwittingly create a new race of mutated snails with an insatiable appetite for weed? She shared her worries with Mouseand he laughed himself sick at her expense, until she informed him he just lost his chance to ever get into her pants.

In the end the plants were true survivors of the Zone. They endured a blowout without much damage, and as a bonus the emission wiped out most of the snail plague. The plants even survived being trampled by boars when one night the mutated beasts burst in the courtyard while one of their lookouts took a nap. It would be a lie to say the plants turned out fine, misshapen and yellowed as they were, but they lived. And Lefty counted it as a great achievement.

Her garden also attracted other animals, like crows and wild cats. Most of them skittered away as soon as someone approached. Except for Felix. The cat was skinny and patchy, with mean eyes and quick claws. Hated everyone but refused to leave. Not even the sounds of shooting practice spooked him. 

And then one day Mouse gave him half a can of Tourist’s Delight and the cat fell in love with him, following Mouse everywhere and rubbing against his legs. The bastard even let Mouse pet him and purred happily. All he did when he saw Lefty every morning was to hiss at her. She only watered him once, and it was a mistake, honestly! She had no idea the cat was napping between her plants.

Mouse named the cat Felix because of his colouring. He sometimes carried Felix in his backpack and, if someone got too close, Felix would stick his paw out and claw the poor unwary soul who hadn’t noticed the eyes peering from under the backpack’s flap.

#

Once the harvest was done, Lefty kept a couple of the marihuana plants for herself. She and Mouse wanted to try making weed infused radioactive moonshine. It sounded badass. The rest she gladly gave to Ganja, who nearly kissed her in his excitement.

It took longer than usual to make their new special vodka, but the results were certainly amazing. There was actually a queue of brave souls volunteering to be the first to try the stuff, which suited Lefty fine because she refused to intoxicate herself again like the last time. The liquor was strong enough to turn your throat numb, and the weed flavour was actually fucking disgusting, but her fellow Freedomers liked it.

Oh well, everyone needs something strong enough to melt their brains once in a while. She preferred to stick to the “normal” moonshine, or better yet, the really normal cheap vodka that could be found everywhere across the Zone.

Little did she suspect than in a few weeks she would be the one looking for something strong enough to melt her brain.

#

A very aggressive group of mercs had settled on the other end of Dark Valley, and they wanted to kick Freedom out to control the whole area.

Lefty was now almost constantly out on patrol, sometimes just with Mouse, sometimes with someone else tagging along. And all days everyone that left for patrol knew some of them wouldn’t come back to the base. Lefty wasn’t much of a believer, but she still prayed it wouldn’t be her group. She supposed her selfishness should horrify her, but she cared more about living another day to be horrified later.

One day she was out on patrol with Mouse and Pavlik, and they were telling him about the rookie they one found near this very same spot, defending herself from a pseudo-dog armed with a broken shovel. Pavlik laughed at Mouse’s description of short woman whacking a mutant hard enoug to break the shovel, and a shot rang in the air. Mouse stopped gesturing and fell backwards dead. Two mercs hopped into view from between the trees and Lefty screamed in murderous rage.

She and Pavlik survived to drag Mouse’s body back to the base, but everything is foggy in her memory. Lefty has a vague recollection of how the mercenaries ended being a red pulp stuck to the asphalt, but she’s happy not remembering it properly. Ever. In fact, she wishes she could erase this whole day from her memory, she decided sitting on her bunk while looking blankly ahead.

It feels surreal to think that just a week ago she finally had sex with Mouse in this same bed, and while it wasn’t spectacular, it was leagues better than her last fling. Even when Felix attacked her feet and they had to stop to bandage her bleeding toe. And now Mouse was getting cold and stiff in a hole in the ground. She needed a drink, the strongest she had, so Lefty got out her special moonshine  and drank until she retched and passed out.

She woke up to a splitting headache and a small weight settled on her chest. The sight of the damned cat curled on top of her was what finally made her cry. In that moment Lefty wished she had never left her home, despite her overbearing parents and the law breathing down her neck after that small robbery. But at least she wouldn’t have seen Mouse die, and she wouldn’t have turned into a bloodthirsty monster that savaged two men until they were paste, and she wouldn’t be pondering on the slim possibilities she had to even reach twenty. Fuck, she should have never left Bratislava. Except that she had always wanted to get out of her city and go adventuring around. Precisely that was why she got into the Zone.

Eventually she composed herself under the judging stare of the cat. This wasn’t the time to fall apart. Her faction was her family now, and they needed her more than ever, since they were at war with the mercenaries. And she needed to have her feet on the ground if she wanted to have a shot at surviving. Alright.

That night she left half a can of Tourist’s Delights for Felix, and for the first time the cat let her pet him while he ate. She still hated his judging stare and he still hissed at her on a daily basis, but Lefty liked to think they tolerated each other to honour Mouse’s memory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact of the day: in an early draft Shovel was supposed to join Freedom and befriend Lefty while teaching her how to garden/farm. But somewhere along the line Shovel got attached to Evgenii and decided that joining a Faction she knew nothing about was stupid.


	2. Things aren't always what they seem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon asked: I wish you would write a fic where things aren't always what they seem. // I wrote about my main OC Shovel.

After seeing it in person Shovel had to admit the mountains of trash were certainly unique. Ugly, but unique. Evgenii found them fascinating and loved scavenging for pieces and other junk. It was only when they discovered that sometimes there were artifacts buried between the trash that she started to dig around the piles of junk as well.

“Look, we won’t need a detector after all,” Evgenii had laughed when he grabbed a weird rock from beneath a heap of debris.

The artifact glowed faintly and seemed to vibrate in Evgenii’s hand, giving the impression that it was a living thing. Shovel touched it cautiously and found it was warm to the touch.  Huh, she wondered if it was from the faint radiation it emitted or something else.

“It’s a Stone Blood,” Evgenii’s declaration made sense, the artifact had a blood red colour. Then a grim thought popped in her mind.

“Is it truly made of blood?” It wasn’t such a farfetched idea. She’d seen what happened when a boar or a dog got sucked into certain anomalies. The ground of the Zone wasn’t lacking in chunks of flesh and splattered blood that could end up in an artifact.

“I don’t know,” Evgneii  said, “but we could ask an Ecologist if we find one.”

She insisted Evgenii keep the artifact since he had found it, but he was adamant he didn’t need it right now.  Well, he was right in that they didn’t need more sources of radiation, the trash piles were radioactive enough. So Shovel came with the solution to put all artifacts they found in an extra bag and later they would decide which ones to keep and which to sell.

They spent all day sifting through the garbage looking for artifacts. The dosimeters warned them of which areas to avoid, but after a whole afternoon of being in contact with radioactive trash Shovel felt lightheaded and her hands were blistered. They looked terrible, but as a farmer she was used to blister and calluses, and knew her hands would eventually heal. And maybe the slight dizziness was born of all the vodka consumed to neutralize the radiation. Look at that, her grandma was right when she said vodka was the best medicine! But the solution to radiation wasn’t just vodka, some of the artifacts they collected also helped counter radiation.  

Their day had been blessedly peaceful. There had been a warning about a pack of wild dogs roaming the northern portion of Garbage, but Shovel and Evgenii steered away from there. And most importantly, despite being famous for surprise bandit attacks, the place seemed almost deserted today. She was infinitely grateful for that. And then, as if summoned by her thoughts, the unmistakable sounds of gunshots rang from just behind the trash pile they were searching.  Their PDAs beeped softly, but Shovel ignored it and made Evgenii help her pack up all the artifacts and get ready to run like hell at any second. If they were bandits she wanted to be as far away from them as the Zone would allow, even the pack of feral dogs sounded better than bandits.

“Search for that son of a bitch!” A man yelled somewhere nearby. Oh crap, they were really close to them, she realised.

Shovel squatted behind a heavy metal crate and signalled at Evgenii to follow her. If they managed to reached the main road unseen they had a chance to escape before they were found. But that was not to happen. A bulky figure came from behind the trash mountain and spotted them.

“You, get up!” the man in the red and black suit pointed his rifle at them.

“Oh thank God, it’s Duty,” Evgenii whispered at her. Then in a louder voice and keeping his hands in the air he said, “Don’t shoot! We’re just two honest stalkers!”

The man lowered his gun and Shovel sighed in relief. Duty. She remembered Evgenii’s crash course about the factions, Duty was good news! They killed bandits and generally protected stalkers from dangerous mutants.

“Honest stalkers, heh,” the Dutyer’s voice sounded slightly muffled because of the bandana covering his mouth. However his eyes were clearly visible, shining with amusement at Evgenii’s words. “We’re after some dangerous bandits roaming this area, until we find them you better go to the Train Hangar with Sergeant–”

The spray of arterial blood drenched the knife and the hand of the bandit behind him.  Evgenii and Shovel gasped in horrified surprise as the bandit pushed the dead man to the ground.

“You…,” knife in hand, dripping blood, the bandit advanced towards them. “You should…”

Shovel took a step backwards and grabbed one of the metal pipes lying around. Throwing it at the bandit hadn’t been her intention, she wanted to use it as a club, but her hands ached with all those boils and she dropped the pipe mid-swing. The metal pipe hit the bandit on the ribs and he doubled over, wheezing and groaning in pain. That was the opening she had been looking for. She grabbed Evgenii by the sleeve of his jacket and nearly dragged him with her, running like mad. He praised Shovel’s good aim with that pipe, and she nearly chocked laughing because it had been a stroke of dumb luck that the pipe hit the bandit instead of falling on her own foot.

The intermittent sounds of gunshots accompanied them all the way, getting dimmer and dimmer the further away from the Train Hangar they went. Shovel hoped Duty caught the bandits and avenged their fallen comrade. She couldn’t bring herself to kill an unarmed person, even if it was a bandit, but she had no qualms wishing someone else did it.

They went back to the vehicle graveyard and the safety of Bes’ camp. The older stalker was always nice to the rookies and Shovel liked his drive to cleanse the Zone from its nastiest inhabitants.

“Well met stalkers,” he greeted them. Shovel managed to say “ _Hi”_  and Evgenii just waved his hand at him, they were breathless from their little race down here. “Are you in trouble?”

“Bandits… near the Hangar,” Shovel panted between mouthfuls of air. She tried to relax but she was still full of adrenaline and too short on oxygen. Damn, they must have broken a record in their haste to get here.

“Yes, I know. A gang of those bastards has taken residence there, they use Duty and loner gear taken from their victims to trick the unwary. Not many manage to escape, you’ve been lucky.”

Bes’ explanation felt like someone had dumped a bucket of iced water over her. What? She sit down on the ground, needing something solid to rest on. The man with the knife, he killed one of the bandits. He may have been dressing a black jacket and tracksuit pants, but that in itself wasn’t a crime, perhaps he wasn’t a bandit. Oh God, what if she had left an innocent man at the mercy of those bandits? She might as well have killed him!

Thankfully Bes didn’t pry and left them space to recover their wits. Evgenii sat by her side and they mutely contemplated the set up they had fallen for. Shovel’s thoughts kept circling back to the same idea: if it wasn’t for the man with the knife they would have gone to the Hangar like sheep to the slaughter.

“We need to start checking the PDA a lot more,” she decided. Then she voiced the question that was nagging at her. “Do you think the man I hit with the pipe escaped? He saved us from the bandit and I attacked him.”

“He was carrying a knife and I was sure he was going to shank us.” Evgenii’s words mirrored her thoughts, but coming from someone else they didn’t feel like a cheap attempt of self-justification. Still, the incident didn’t sit well with her.

“I’m serious, from now on we check the PDA for every step we make,” Shovel insisted.

“Yeah, sounds good.” Evgenii agreed. He clapped her on the back and got up. “Come, let’s see if Bes wants to trade one of our artifacts for supplies.”

She nodded and followed him, not without surreptitiously checking her PDA first. Only persons around here were herself, Evgenii, Bes and his two comrades. Good. She pocketed the PDA again, feeling better. Her friends had always accused her of being a bit paranoid, but clearly she wasn’t paranoid enough.


	3. Were you ever going to tell me?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @portuguesefromhell asked: prompt “Were you ever going to tell me?” for Shovel

This hunt wasn’t going according to the plan. So far all of Wolf’s jobs had been fairly easy: go kill some mutants and come back for the pay. And perhaps Shovel freaked out a bit the first time she saw a horde of fleshes -because she knew what pigs looked like and those things were certainly no pigs, no matter what everyone said- but killing the rowdy mutated  _pigs_  was still easier than killing a pseudo-dog.

Coming to the railroad bridge was always risky, since the military were trying to regain its control, and Shovel’s latest mission drove her too close to it for her liking. To her great relief, it was empty today. No soldiers, no stalkers and, best of all, no bandits. So she went towards the spot marked in her map, close to the old mill. Everything was calm and silent. Too silent for Shovel to feel comfortable. But the marker on her map urged to go forward, towards the far end of the railways, away from the bridge.

A strange static sound could be heard the closer she got to her mark, and Shovel turned around, half-expecting to see that strange floating ball of electricity that once chased her through the forest and into the Zone. But there was nothing. In fact the sound seemed to come from beneath the ground, more or less?  It was coming from a tunnel, as she soon saw. The entry looked dark and foreboding from her position, curtained by burnt fuzz. No way Shovel was going in there, she preferred to find another way to cross the railways if needed.

The growl was loud in the otherwise silent area. And it was coming from behind her. She’d heard this kind of grunts before, when she killed that odd dog with a shovel while they tried to bury their fallen companion in Dark Valley. Frankly, that wasn’t the worst that happened during that first escapade, but she remembered well enough the pseudo-dog to know they were scarily resistant and agile and aggressive. So she ran, even if that meant getting into the tunnel. The static sound grew louder and she went into the darkness of the tunnel. Seeing a huge dark shape amidst the shadows, she jumped on it. A second later an electric discharged bathed the tunnel in a bluish flash, and she heard the pained yip of the dog.

“You’re a lucky son of a bitch, huh? If you stumbled you’d be dead for sure.”

There was someone else on top of that moored truck, hidden by the shadows that consumed the tunnel. She squinted her eyes and glimpsed an indistinct human shape, so Shovel took out her torchlight and pointed it at the unknown person.

“Fuck’s sake, turn it off!” The guy protected his eyes with one of his hands.

Shovel quickly powered down the torchlight, whispering a “ _Sorry”_  to him. That brief moment of light served her to see her mysterious companion was no stalker. He was military. Oh  _blin_ , she was screwed! Stalking was a crime under Ukrainian law, and the rookie village was close enough to the military checkpoint to know how military dealt with stalkers – with a hail of bullets usually.

“Not a very talkative gal?” The soldier had finally caught on that she wasn’t a man, probably when she said sorry. “A shame, I wouldn’t mind a bit of conversation.”

“For a soldier you are friendly,” It was a stupid observation, and Shovel wished she‘d kept her mouth shut. But from all she’d heard she half expected the soldier to point his rifle at her immediately after seeing her.

The soldier laughed heartily, much to Shovel’s confusion. The laughter quickly died when the pseudo-dog barked angrily at them from the other side of the tunnel’s entrance, its yellowish eyes glinting in a decidedly unfriendly way.

“Fucking beast has had me trapped here for at least six hours,” the soldier growled. “You’re the first person I’ve seen since I left the outpost this morning.”

“Wait, you’ve been trapped here all day long?” Shovel eyed his rifle, which was just a lump in the dark, but she remembered it looked much better and deadly than her hunting rifle. “Why didn’t you shoot it?”

The soldier grunted again and shuffled closer to her. “Ran out of bullets. And I dropped my bag when I jumped up here, that electric thing stings really hard if it catches you.”

Shovel felt a little bad for him. He was clearly new to the Zone, just like her. And the Zone was kicking their asses. They sat on top of the rusted truck in silence for a while, contemplating their situation. The soldier eventually broke the silence once more.

“What about you stalker, do you know how to shoot?”

“Of course I do!” She was a bit insulted he’d questioned her proficiency. Why carry a weapon you didn’t know how t use? That was stupid! Was it because she was a woman or because she was rookie? Well, she’d show him!

She crawled to the far end of the truck, closer to the pseudo-dog, anger taking over her earlier fear. It took quite a fair bit of bullets to make it limp, but soon it would be dead. However her optimism was quickly snuffed when she ran out of bullets and the pseudo-dog was still alive.

“Well, you’re not a bad shot, but that thing is still kicking around,” the soldier pointed out. Yeah, thanks, like she couldn’t see it with her own eyes. But getting snippy wouldn’t solve anything.

“I’m out of ammo too.” She admitted over the buzzing sound of the ever-present electro.

The soldier took out something from his belt, and when he crept closer she saw it was a huge knife. Shovel took a step back.

“You lure it to us and I’ll finish it while it’s distracted.”

No. Absolutely not. “I’m not playing bait!”

A tense silence fell over them, only broken by the growls of the still prowling pseudo-dog. Shovel was silently panicking, mentally going over her options if he decided to lunge at her with the knife or tried to push her down. Her odds were… not good.

In the end it was the soldier who broke their stalemate, offering her the knife. “Fine. I’ll play bait and you kill it. I just want to get out of here.”

He dragged himself forward, and it was then Shovel noticed his ankle didn’t look right. Oh, had the pseudo-dog got him before? Walking like that must hurt him like hell. She was considering offering him a change of places after all when the pseudo-dog jumped at the soldier. He’d been perched at the edge of the truck, searching for a landing spot that wasn’t covered by tendrils of static, when the dog dragged him down. Man and beast fell into the electric anomaly, which then exploded in another discharge. Shovel crept closer to the edge as well, to see what happened. The electro reformed and exploded again, starling her enough to make her slip as well.

Shovel rolled down the side of the truck and on top of the two bodies on the ground. She tried to get away from the anomaly before it shocked her. And she made it. But then she noticed the soldier was trying to move from beneath the dead pseudo-dog. Not thinking about it, Shovel went back to help him. True to the soldier’s earlier comment, the anomaly’s shock stung harder than she could have imagined. Her scream echoed in the darkness of the tunnel.

Moving faster than ever before in her life, she dragged the soldier out of the tunnel, and just in time to avoid another electric discharge. The man on the ground twitched and gasped like he couldn’t breathe properly, and Shovel hoped he didn’t require immediate medical attention, because she barely knew how to bandage a wound.

“Th-th-thank you,” he finally managed, extending a hand towards her. Shovel didn’t take it, out of fear it would hurt him more than do him any good. There was a map of red lines criss-crossing the skin, like an artsy tattoo gone wrong.

“Are- are you okay?” Probably a stupid question, but she asked anyway.

The soldier wheezed, slowly getting up. “Been better. But I’m alive.”

Shovel nodded. It made sense. At least he was able to stand on his own. He took a couple of hesitant steps towards the truck, and Shovel feared he would fall into the electro. She hadn’t saved him from the anomaly just for him to fall into it again. It would be a waste of her effort. However he did not fall. Instead he retrieved a bag that was stuck underneath the vehicle. He rummaged around and then thrust a pair of small packages out to her.

“Not much, but I have nothing else besides my ammo.” He waved his hand impatiently when she didn’t grab them. “C’mon, what are you waiting for? You saved my life, I won’t let you go empty handed.”

His thanks and a promise to not kill her when she turned her back would have sufficed, yet he seemed intent on giving her those parcels of food –presumably it was food, but she wasn’t sure.

“Okay, yeah.” She took his offering.

The situation felt awkward to Shovel. How do you accept someone’s gratitude when you just saved them? Saying  _“No problem”_  or  _“It was no trouble”_  would be either lacking or big filthy lies.

“Normally I’d try to arrest you, but not today. I hope you survive your stay here stalker,” he told her before he left, limping and hobbling but steady on his feet.

Shovel stood there, watching him leave while she clutched the food on her hands. They turned out to be some sort of chocolate flavoured energy bars. Oh goodness, it seemed like the last time she tasted chocolate was a lifetime ago.

She went back to the rookie village, happily munching a chocolate bar and with an odd feeling of satisfaction blooming in her chest.

#

Their planned trip to Garbage had a rocky start. And a rocky middle. Or perhaps this wasn’t even the middle and it would be simply their end. The railroad bridge was supposedly under stalker control, but it was the military they found waiting for them. Unfortunately, neither she nor Evgenii noticed it until it was too late to go back unseen.

One of the soldiers was aiming their rifle at them, and another gestured them to come forward, closer to his armed comrade.

“Want to cross the bridge stalkers?” One of the soldiers hollered. “Don’t be rude, come have a chat!”

Following the armed soldiers’ orders, they went towards the bridge, like sheep to the slaughter. Evgenii looked as worried as she felt. This wasn’t good, they didn’t have anything to bribe them. But what else could they do? Run? When they were closer, Shovel saw there was a third soldier sitting in one of the vehicles parked –or was it abandoned?–  by the side. The soldier also saw her.

“Fuck off Sergei, they get through for free.”

“But corporal…” The one who called them forward wasn’t happy with the change of plans.

“No buts, lower the damn weapons!”

It was the soldier she met in the tunnel with the electro. He looked well, better than she remembered, but then again more than a week had passed since that day. The soldier, corporal, whatever he was, approached her.

“With this the debt is settled, yes?” he looked serious, his voice hard. Shovel was confused by his actions. She was under the impression he’d already  _‘paid’_ her for that, or that was what she had told her.

“Why this? I’m not ungrateful, but you already gave me the chocolates.”

The other two soldiers howled with laughter at this. She couldn’t understand why her confusion was so freaking funny to them. At least they let them through, without uttering another complaint, while their Corporal led her and Evgenii to the other side of the bridge and thanked her again  _“for being how she was,”_  whatever that meant. The echoes of the soldier’s mirth followed them past the bridge. And during all that time Evgenii was silent like a tomb.

“Were you ever going to tell me?” he eventually asked her, when they were close to the old farm.

That simple sentence made Shovel flinch.

_The door opened and Polina’s hand was gone from her, leaving a ghostly cold in its absence._

_“Yulia!” Her sister Irina stood on the door, looking angrily at her friend and her. “Were you ever going to tell me?”_

She took a deep breath and focused on the now. This was completely different from that time, she wasn’t hiding  _anything_  anymore. And in the end everything worked out between her sister and her. Besides, Evgenii didn’t sound angry or hurt. His voice was full of surprise and awe.

“Tell you what?”

“You befriended a soldier! And he gave you chocolate! How? And when?”

Leave it to Evgenii to be impressed by something she accomplished by accident. Like getting that stupid nickname (that she’d started to grow fond of, but don’t tell anyone that). She launched to tell him the story while they walked along the empty road, marching to an adventure of their own. 


	4. This is, by far, the dumbest thing you’ve ever done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @portuguesefromhell asked: prompt "this is, by far, the dumbest thing you’ve ever done" for Evgenii. // This story ties in with Shovel & Evgenii's main adventures as seen on "From the Zone with love"; and was a teaser or prequel to the events of chapter 18 - Captured.

“Let me get this straight, you want to follow the girl to wherever it is she’s going. And you want my help for that?” Markov laughed in disbelief. “Are you mental?”

Evgenii clenched his fists and took a deep breath, swallowing his anger and frustration. He knew this had been a bad idea, but since Gecko mentioned  _him_ , he felt the need to speak with Markov. And now he understood better than ever Shovel’s gleeful talk of smashing a fist into the bastard’s face.

“You owe us big time,” he reminded to the older stalker, “and I know she hates you for what you did, but I’m gonna need all the help I can get to rescue her. Even yours.”

Markov looked coldly at him. “I owe nothing to you rookies.”

That was the last straw. Evgenii was tired, and hurting, and worried for his friend. And this-  this  _asshole_ , failed him yet again.

“You abandoned us! Left us to die!” he poked Markov in the chest with an accusing finger. “Don’t you feel even a tiny bit of remorse? Or is it something you do regularly?”

“So your girl-friend gets snatched by bandits, Monolithians or whatever it was, and you want to get her back, but you don’t even have a plan? And you want me to come along for the ride?” Right now Markov couldn’t sound any more dismissive even if he tried, with a sneer on his ugly mug. “Forget it kid. She’s already dead or will be soon.”

“I’m not leaving my friend for dead because I’m not a coward! Unlike you!”

Markov’s face went a really unflattering shade of red. “Get the fuck outta my face. Now!”

So that was it. The last remnant of what once had been their friendship was once again snapped and stomped on by Markov. Had they ever been friends in the first place?

“I can’t believe I once looked up to you. How stupid I was.”

Evgenii stormed off towards the scientist’s bunker and away from him, before he did something he might regret. Like drawing his pistol (or crying).

“Kid!” The stalker’s shout infused some hope in him, a brittle feeling that Markov was about to shatter. “My final advice: Don’t do it. That’s, by far, the dumbest thing you can ever do. The last one too, most probably.”

Evgenii was, of course, going to ignore that  _brilliant_  advice. He wasn’t going to count with Markov’s help, so what? He was going after Shovel either way, no doubt about it. And Gecko was already waiting for him outside the scientist’s bunker, fiddling impatiently with her backpack’s straps and checking something in her PDA.

“ _Blin_ , what took you so long? I’ve been tracking your friend’s PDA and they have crossed into Rostok.”

That was Duty territory, right? With a little luck that would slow them down. He stole a glance to the PDA, and the three dots they were following. Shovel was still flanked by the two weirdoes. They might be dangerous but at least they would be two against two. That was good. Evgenii nodded to her and Gecko took the lead, since she knew her way around the area better than him. She imposed a quick pace that Evgenii accepted without comment. Shovel’s group had half a day on them, being quick was essential to catch up with them.


	5. I regret it all

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @portuguesefromhell requested angst for Shovel // This story takes place after the events of Captured (find it on "From the Zone with love", chapter 18)

Sleep didn’t come easy for Shovel. The horrors of the last days insisted on playing like a video stuck on a loop whenever she closed her eyes. She was afraid of what her dreams might have in store for her. She was finally safe again, with Evgenii sleeping on the other side of the bonefire and with Gecko standing watch. Then why did death and hopelessness still cling to her? Prying bubblegum from hair would be easier but, unlike hair, one could not cut off the part of their mind that was sticky with guilt.

“Can’t sleep?” Gecko whispered over the crackling fire. “Lemme tell you, a couple swigs of  _kvas_  usually work for me. Or vodka if you need something stronger.”

Shovel propped herself on her elbows to look at Gecko. “Is that how you cope? With drink?”

“Everybody drinks here. Shit coping method, I know.” That was a bleak perspective. “I used to carve wood, make useless trinkets… But there are times you need a drink.”

“Do you ever regret coming to the Zone?”

Gecko chuckled humourlessly. “Do you?”

“I regret it all,” Shovel confessed in a strangled whisper.

Perhaps if she hadn’t gone to Agroprom… Or better yet, avoided Markov’s ill fated expedition. Yes, maybe then she wouldn’t be in this situation.

“Truly? Everything? Like, even having dinner? Well, that I could understand, the sausage tasted like dirt.”

The attempt at levity didn’t make Shovel laugh or feel better, but it got a strained smile out of her. She contemplated the darkness around them, wondering what things were lurking there, waiting for a victim. The Zone was terrifying and she wanted out. But, as difficult to believe as it was, she had been relatively content for a while.

“Maybe not everything.” Gecko’s tentative smile bolstered her. “I definitely regret dinner though.”

Her quiet giggling was almost contagious. Then she got serious again, like she only had to flip a switch to go from one to the other.

“It gets better with time. Sleeping, I mean.”

Good to know, but completely useless right now. “Can I sit with you? I’m not sleepy.”

Gecko didn’t call her out on her lie, just patted the ground next to her. Shovel sat there, looking at the dancing forms the fire created and listening to Evgenii’s snores, and asked Gecko to tell her about her carving.

Dawn would come, as it always did, but first she had to endure the darkest part of the night.


	6. When it happens to you enough you just learn to pick up on it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @portuguesefromhell requested angst for Evgenii. This one takes place years down into their future.

The first time it happened, Evgenii didn’t truly notice it. You get to the age of forty-two and sudden aches were now part of your life. And perhaps he’d had a bit too much  _salo_  last night at  ~~Shovel’s~~  Yulia’s. Her wife added too much spice to every food she prepared.

In hindsight, that had been the first warning.

The second time, he’d been woken up at midnight by an intense burning pain in his abdomen.

He couldn’t move or roll to the side. The only time he felt something similar was on the Zone, when a bandit shot him in the leg and the wound got infected. No professor Sakharov to treat him now, or wondrous artifacts to help him.

The pain ebbed away after ten long minutes, and Evgenii promised himself to get an appointment with the doctor tomorrow morning. But he woke up feeling fine, and decided he’d grossly exaggerated the importance of the issue.

The third time the pain came and never went away. The dull burning became a permanent fixture of his life. Evgenii decided he had an ulcer and started eating healthier and generally taking better care of himself. After all, he wasn’t that young anymore.

The fourth time he had just finished a light breakfast when it decided it didn’t want to stay put. Evgenii had enough time to reach the bathroom and the he was puking his guts out, bile burning his throat to make it match the burning in his stomach and the tell-tale metallic taste coating his tongue. 

This time he did get an appointment with the doctor. When it happens to you enough you just learn to pick up on it, even if it takes you a while to heed the warnings.

Cancer wasn’t exactly an unexpected surprise for ex-stalkers. Although it was still devastating news. And notifying friends and family was way worse.

_Yes. No, I’m fine for now. Too aggressive they said, but there’s an experimental treatment they want me to try. Love you too._

Bullshit, no experimental treatment would work. He knew it, deep down he’d known the truth for a while now. Only a miracle could save him…

He wanted to call  ~~Shovel~~  Yulia one last time, before going back to the Zone once again. As always, she beat him to it, sending him a message as Evgenii ruminated about what he wanted to tell her.

_"Still got my stash in the farm. And my ecologist credentials. See you in two days at the Dityaki checkpoint?"  - Shovel_


	7. Don’t look at me like that

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @solnishka1927 requested prompt "Don’t look at me like that.” for Shovel. This one takes place once Shovel gets out of the Zone.

The normal bustle of the city was muffled by the walls of her sister’s flat, and the faulty whirring of the old fridge. But most distracting was Irina’s complete silence as she finished her coffee instead of replying, or making a comment or anything.  

“And that’s more or less everything that happened while I was there.”  She chuckled awkwardly, desperate to fill the void that settled over the room.

Irina bit her lip and nodded once, setting her mug on the table slow and deliberate.  Their eyes meet for a second, and it was like staring into frosted river.

“Don’t look at me like that”

“Like what?”

Irina was terribly composed, and as always that only angered Shovel more. “You did the same when you caught me with Polina, or when I decided to stay on the farm. That’s your look of  _I judge your choice from my freaking high horse_!”

“Christ’s sake Yulia, you killed people!” Shovel’s flinch didn’t deter Irina in the slightest. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you’re alive and here, but you tell the story like– like that was the norm! You’re all like,  _hey, I killed someone while I was away. What’s for dinner?_  Don’t you see how messed up that is?”

“Of course I do, I lived through it all!” Anger stung on her eyes, hot and watery. She would not break. Not now. “And you can’t understand how terrible and exhilarating it was!”

“No, I don’t. No normal person would.”

Shovel felt like she’d been slapped. She got up and stormed off of the cozy little kitchen and out of the flat, not bothering to say goodbye.  Two flights of stairs later, she sat on the steps and broke down crying, wishing that speaking with her sister was easier.  

She didn’t hear the approaching footsteps until someone sat by her side on the narrow step.  

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Irina put her arm around her, gently pulling her closer, and she hiccupped. In that moment, she was just Yulia again. It was so hard sometimes to stop being Shovel. “I just– I might be shit at expressing it, but I’m worried about you.”

“I know. Sometimes I wonder… but I know.”


	8. Rumours and Tales

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shovel and Evgenii hear some rumours. This chapter serves as introduction for the dynamice between my OC The Piper (Dimitry) and @archangxlavacyn's OC Natalya (The Witch). It contains references to the events of Captured (find it on "From the Zone with love", chapter 18)

“And I swear, he stopped gnawing on the bone to smile at me and it was worse than coming face to face with a bloodsucker!  _Blyat_ , it still gives me the chills to remember. Ran away from there faster than if I had a pseudo-giant chasing me.”

The stalkers assembled around the campfire fidgeted in their spots. The night was too dark and they were too close to the place where the supposed encounter with the cannibal had occurred, but nobody wanted to appear to be scared. Although Evgenii was surrpetiously looking at the dark silhouette of the nearby copse of trees.

Shovel was sort of unimpressed by the story. After being kidnapped by crazy bandits and then the confrontation with the even crazier Monolithians, a tale about a lone creepy dude didn’t seem that threatening. And that if he existed. She knew pretty well older stalkers loved making shit up to try to scare the rookies and have a laugh at their expense. As if the usual things one could encounter around weren’t the stuff of potential nightmares. Nevertheless, Gecko looked worried.

“You believe that story?” Shovel asked to the other woman. 

Gecko had so far been the voice of experience and reason in their trek back from Red Forest. And it was only because she vouched for them that Shovel accepted to camp with this ragtag bunch of loners and Freedomers in the middle of nowhere. If it was up to her, Shovel would have stayed away from them all. Just Evegnii, Gecko and her, camping somewhere else.

“I’ve also seen The Piper. Once, from afar.” Evgenii leant forward, looking at Gecko with wide eyes. 

Shovel tamped down her initial skepticism. So far, Gecko had never lied to them, she must have seen something. “Oh?”

Looking suddenly embarrassed to have everyone’s attention on her, Gecko cleared her throat. “It was before I starterd working with the scientist. Saw a lone man in a dark parka walking around the Bloodsucker Village in Army Warehouses. He was followed by like, I don’t know, dozens of wild dogs. And further behind him, following his trail was a girl. Pale, dressed strangely, in an old fashioned way. Definitely not a stalker.”

“So The Witch is not a legend?” Evgenii screeched, hyped and terrified by this revelation. “Does she really mark people for The Piper to kill? Is she really followed by crows?”

“Don’t say their names too loud, little rookie,” one of the older loners said, “or they’ll come. And whenever they come, people disappear.”

“People disappear all the time in here,” Evgenii had the good sense to not fall for it.

“Yes. Usually because they stepped into an anomaly,” Shovel backed him up. Really, tall tales were not up to her taste. 

“I manned the sentry tower in the Dark valley base for months, me and my sniper rifle,” a Freedomer with a scar crossing his face butted in. “The scope never failed me. And once I saw that fucker set his pack of dogs against a motherfucking Spetsnaz, shot him in the head while he tried to fight off the dogs. He dragged the body away and that’s all I saw.”

A dark mood fell over the group. This did not sound like a fabrication or embellishement. The loner who had tried to spook Evgenii kept quiet this time, thank goodness. Perhaps The Piper and The Witch were not inventions. And perhaps they were cannibals, who knew. But Shovel doubted they were as ubiquitous as people claimed.

Even so, the idea of  people being so notoriously dangerous that they became fodder for fireside tales was unsettling. As if normal Zone stuff wasn’t bad enough. Shovel was still getting used to this whole  _people-shooting-at-her_  thing. And her having to shoot people. 

_(She killed him)_

_(She was a murderer)_

Her hands were already stained with blood. Maybe not innocent blood, but it weighed on her all the same. 

However, if any other crazed Monolithian, or bloodthirsy bandits, or actual cannibal creeps tried  _anything_ , she was ready to get bloody again if they didn’t back down. Shovel was going home and nothing would get in her way. And she wouldn’t allow he friends to be harmed if there was anything she could do about it.


	9. Reluctant Team Work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one takes place in an AU of sorts, where my OC The Piper and @archangxlavacyn‘s OC Natalya (The Witch) didn’t go full crazy and end up together. This story features Shovel and Natalya meeting!

Running blindly into an abandoned building wasn’t the smartest idea, but she needed to take cover before they spotted her again. Shovel bolted through the doorway and stopped once she was safely ensconced by the shadows, panting for breath and lungs burning from running. Now that she was safe from her human pursuers, she could worry about what could be lurking in the dark corners.

After a cursory glance around, she decided she was alone. Probably. However the windows were like gaping holes, she could be still easily spotted. Going to the upper floor would help, and she’d also be able to control the movements of the soldiers after her. The stairs were in bad condition but usable. The eroded concrete held her weight, although it creaked as she went up. Hiding behind a half wall, she observed the soldiers combing the street in search of her, presumably. The insignia on their uniforms made her want to curse out a storm. Why were the bloody Spetsnaz after her? The new ecologist patch on her jacket should grant her immunity from being shot by the military! These must have not received the memo yet, but Shovel didn’t think coming out to inform them of her chosen faction would do an ounce of good. They seemed pretty much  _“shoot first, ask questions never”_  type of guys.

Creeping around quietly, hunting rifle in hand, Shovel tried to find if there was a back exit. She wanted to rejoin Evgenii and Gecko in Yantar as soon as possible, not squat on an abandoned building in Pripyat while the military hunted for her. At least she was grateful Evgenii hadn’t insisted to come with her, not while his shoulder was still mending. And Gecko had missions of her own, and while Shovel liked her company, she didn’t need a nanny anymore to run around the Zone.

A strangled groan came from a room further to her right. Shit. Why had she volunteered to come here, in the first place? Ah yes, because she wanted to impress Sakharov’s cute new assistant, so Shovel agreed to bring her that especial artifact she wanted. Grabbing an artifact should have been pretty simple. Except it wasn’t, because nothing was ever easy when you were in Pripyat. Treading lightly and rifle in hand, ready for whatever was nesting in there, Shovel went into the room.  Once her eyes adjusted to the decreased light, she saw what had made the noise. A strange woman was sitting in a corner, cradling a black lump in her hands like one would cradle a doll. She was pretty in a ghostly way. Too pale, too blonde, too oddly dressed. She looked like an apparition from years gone by, a wraith hunting the desolated city of Pripyat. Her eyes were as unsettling as the rest of her.

“He took a bullet for me,” she informed Shovel, rocking the bundle in her hands. She could now see it was a crow, a dead one. Another crow, this one alive, was perched on her shoulder and pecking the ruffles on the collar of her dress.

There was something about the woman that made Shovel’s fingers itch on the trigger, although she did look to be unarmed. She was clearly not mentally sound, but she didn’t appear to be under the influence of the Monolith either. Shovel stayed her hand, lowering her weapon slightly but not letting it go completely.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“They woke the bloodsuckers and blamed me for it. I was just running away from them all.”

Shovel frowned, considering the words from the woman. Perhaps the Spetsnaz were after her and Shovel was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Still, she had the feeling there was more to the story than just that. In any case, she would go on her way as soon as the Spetsnaz left the area, and leave the woman to her business of rocking the dead bird. She took a step backwards, wanting to approach one of the windows but not trusting to leave her back exposed to the strange woman.

“They haven’t left yet,” the woman told her. Shovel looked at her, squint eyed and trying to decide if she was fucking with her. How in blazes could she know that? A crow cawed and the woman smiled. It was lacking any warmth and the effect was unsettling. “They’re at the end of the street now.”

Shovel frowned. “How do you know?”

She didn’t answer her, just cooed at the crow on her shoulder.  Shovel fidgeted on her spot.

“I know this city. But the soldiers took my backpack, with the weapon inside. We could… collaborate.” The last word was said in a way as if it left an unpleasant taste in her mouth.

The first thought that crossed Shovel’s mind was  _Like Hell_ , but she was forced to admit the proposition made sense. The woman was unarmed but allegedly knew to navigate Pripyat, Shovel was hopelessly lost even with her PDA map, but she was armed. She still didn’t like it one bit.

“Just until we leave the city,” Shovel reluctantly agreed. The woman’s smile widened, showing too much teeth for it to be friendly.

“Of course,” she purred. She left the dead crow on the dusty floor and then strode up to Shovel with surprising agility, especially considering the long skirt of her dress.  The crow on her shoulder took flight and escaped through the broken window. “Natalya.”

The hand proffered to her had long nails resembling claws. Shovel added it to the ever growing list of things she didn’t like about Natalya. Like the iron smell that clung to her. She did take the hand, though.  “Shovel.”

“Ooh, you have a nickname! You’re not a rookie anymore, right? Probably not scared of the Witch.” Natalya’s laughter was not a happy giggle, not entirely. Something sinister lurked beneath the surface, as with everything related to her.

Deciding that the best course of action was to ignore Natalya’s weird quirks, for her sanity’s sake, Shovel indicated her to lead the way. If she was going to be the guide, she should go first. Shovel would follow her closely, ready to spring into action if  _anything_  was amiss.

# # #

The Spetsnaz were after their trail again.

Shovel had to admit Natalya seemed to know what she was doing, knowing what places to avoid and where the anomaly clusters were. In turn, Shovel had saved them from a Controller, although they both still had a headache from its psychic attacks. Unfortunately, the gunshots that felled the Controller were what alerted the Spetsnaz of their location.

It wasn’t the first time Shovel was being chased and shot at, yet it never stopped being jarring and panic inducing. She ran after Natalya, dashing along empty streets and occasionally going through abandoned buildings. Crows followed overhead, cawing excitedly at the commotion. They ducked inside a dilapidated Laundromat, some of the washing machines still in a semblance of a line, collecting rust and dead leaves over them. They went deeper into the building.

“Why are we hiding here?” Shovel hissed. The street seemed deserted further down, they could have continued running instead of letting their pursuers catch up with them.

“It’s Monolith territory ahead. I will not go there.”Natalya’s stiff answer was met with Shovel’s frantic approval. No Monolith. Not ever again after that one time in Red Forest. She still had dreams about all the blood and death. Her first (and only) kill.

Shovel quietly went to the upper floor with Natalya, hiding in the shadows. She might have a weapon and their chasers were intent on killing them, but Shovel preferred to not use her rifle against them if she could avoid it. The Spetsnaz ignored the Laundromat, except for one who poked his head through the doors. A flock of crows descended upon him, pecking at his flesh and clawing his face.

“ _Cyka blyat!_  These motherfucking pests!”

From her hiding spot, Shovel only saw his shadow on the wall, moving his arms frantically while trying to scare off the crows. In the end he decided to leave the crow infested Laundromat and join his comrades outside. One, two, three heartbeats later Shovel dared to relax. Crisis avoided, at least for now.

After a prudential waiting time, they emerged from their hiding spot and went downstairs. A chunk of the stairs’ railing broke off right under their hands. The rotten cement crashed loudly against the floor, the sound echoing in the empty Laundromat. Shovel froze in her spot, waiting to see if that had alerted anyone or anything. Seconds ticked by and nobody came to investigate. Thank goodness.

Natalya kept them moving through the back alleys on the edges of this part of town, where nature was slowly claiming back what was once its space. The pavement was more cracked, colonized by weeds and flowers, trees growing dangerously close to buildings. And it made anomalies harder to spot. All she saw was a strange flicker in the air, and before she could take out a bolt –to see if it was the sun playing tricks on her or something more serious– there was a dreadful whooshing sound she had come to associate with vortex anomalies. She snatched Natalya by the back of her dress and forcefully snatched back. She stumbled and knocked Shovel down, sending both of them sprawling to the ground.

“What are you doing?” Natalya got up and looked disdainfully at Shovel, not helping her up. Not that Shovel wanted those claw-like nails anywhere near her.

“You nearly stepped into a vortex, you moron!”

“I wasn’t even inside the effect area of the anomaly!” Oh, so she did know it was there but chose to nearly walk into it anyway.

“Fine. See if I help you the next time,” Shovel muttered darkly while she got up from the ground.

A rustle between the trees prevented any retort from Natalya. They both went into alert, Shovel scrambling to pick up her hunting rifle and be ready to shoot at any mutant coming their way.

_“… roger that, see you at the rendezvous point.”_

Oh no, it wasn’t a mutant. A young soldier came into view, sniper rifle slung on his shoulder and putting his radio in the backpack.  He stopped in his tracks when he spotted Shovel and Natalya standing in front of him. Shovel held her breath in anticipation, mentally repeating  _“please don’t make me do it”_  like a mantra.  But in the Zone there was no one to hear the prayers of those in need.

The man moved his arms, presumably going to grab the radio or his Dragunov, and Natalya hissed like a feral cat. Shovel took aim and pulled the trigger twice. Blood bloomed on the chest of his uniform before he could do anything. He fell backwards, his expression one of comical surprise. Shovel reloaded and carefully approached the downed soldier to see if she had to put him out of his misery. He was dead though, his unseeing blue eyes damning Shovel. Guilt gnawed at her, but there was no panic attack this time. Shovel didn’t know if she should be relieved or worried by that. Still, she was sure she’d see his face in her nightmares.

Natalya approached them and squatted in front of the dead sniper, looking fascinated by the blood soaking his chest. She dipper her finger in it and traced a line over his face paint. God, what a weirdo!

“You’re a good shot, Shovel.” Natalya giggled. At least she abandoned her inspection of the wounds in favour of looting the body. Still a questionable action, but much more common and accepted here in the Zone. She grabbed the Dragunov and his whole backpack, offering Shovel more ammo for her hunting rifle. “The road to the Red Forest checkpoint is over there. You think you can make it on your own?”

True, Shovel did see the road pointed from where they were standing. And she couldn’t wait to get rid of Natalya. “Sure. Do you think you can manage to not step into an anomaly?”

Natalya directed one of her unfriendly and toothy smiles to her. “Until the Zone brings us together again, Sovel.”

Yeah, hopefully that would be never. Not looking back, Shovel broke into a light sprint towards the road to Red Forest. Every step she took was one step closer to being back in Yantar with her friends. She couldn’t wait to get roaring drunk with Evgenii and vent about her strange adventure.

# # #

Natalya watched Shovel go. What a strange woman she was! A stalker with an aversion to use her weapon, even if she was quite good with it. She’d seen her consternation at having to shoot that soldier, even though both their lives were at stake.  Although she hadn’t let her morals get in the way of her survival, Natalya could respect that. She had no doubt that if Shovel knew what she was (or Dimitry) she wouldn’t hesitate to shoot too. Taking her out with her newly acquired Dragunov would probably be a smart choice. However, Natalya did have some morals too, as faded and twisted those might be. And Shovel had upheld her end of the deal, protecting her from mutants and even killing a man for their safety. No, Shovel was safe from her this once.

The path she took was no path at all, crossing through the forest and following landmarks only her and her crows knew. It was a long trek, but the barking of dogs was the first indication she was on the right track. Dimitry’s pack always welcomed her with enthusiasm, sometimes even going as far as coming to escort her back home. She arrived at nightfall, the light from a fire creating shadows on the windows of their chosen abode. It even had most of the roof in one piece. And most importantly, it was secluded.

She slipped quietly inside, feeling playful and wanting to catch Dimitry unaware. She must have known it was not possible to trick so easily a dangerous predator. Two strong arms encircled her waist, trapping her arms and making it really difficult for her to move.

“Welcome home, my little rabbit.” Dimitry’s dark voice never failed to send a shiver up her spine. “If you want to play games, then we are going to play.”

She had many things to tell him, and by the end the end of the week some of the Spetsnaz that chased her would end up in pieces, literally. Dimitry was incredibly territorial, something that pleased her to no end. But first they would indulge in a game of hunter and prey, where getting caught was only half the fun. Tomorrow though, tomorrow the real, bloody hunt would begin.


End file.
